


Unless You Cheat

by protectorofthesea



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Clone Sex, Hate Sex, It/Its Pronouns For Michael | The Distortion (The Magnus Archives), Kind of emo, Loneliness, M/M, Minor Body Horror, Nosebleed, Other, Porn With Plot, its weird but its fun okay, monster fucking, more about michaels relationship with the distortion than sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-11
Updated: 2021-01-11
Packaged: 2021-03-15 05:28:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28683303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/protectorofthesea/pseuds/protectorofthesea
Summary: A study of Michael's feelings towards the Distortion, positive, negative, and sexual.
Relationships: Michael | The Distortion/Michael Shelley
Comments: 2
Kudos: 29





	Unless You Cheat

**Author's Note:**

> Best enjoyed with some Lemon Demon and a healthy helping of identity problems.

Michael was sometimes there and sometimes not. It was hard to tell which was which. Most often, he wasn't, or at least he wasn't aware of any stimulus. Sometimes he knew he didn't have a body, but it was hard to know that. Knowing something wasn't there that shouldn't be there was difficult for the brain that also wasn't there to process. 

Other times, he'd find himself in the halls, walking and walking and then suddenly realizing he was walking. 

It was warm, but he was shivering in his coat. No matter how many times he took off that coat, every time he looked in one of those mirrors, he was wearing it again. 

He could feel in those times. If he shattered a picture's glass it hurt, if he worked himself up into a panic his throat got tight and his lungs burned. He could get scared or angry, cry, or run or yell. The hallways were normal for the most part except that they were endless and unchanging. He couldn't change. Couldn't be injured or pull out his hair or even damage his clothes. 

And it was unbearably lonely. After years at the Archives, he was painfully aware he  _ wasn't  _ being watched. He'd gotten so used to the feeling of eyes on the inside that the absence of it was painfully lonely.

Loneliness invited  _ it.  _ He still wasn't sure if it could sense his emotions or if him being sad made it sad and it sought him out for comfort. At first, he'd tried hiding from it, breaking through mirrors and pictures at any hint of much too heavy footsteps. 

After a while that got tiresome and he'd started to hope it would just kill him.

It just followed him. At a distance at first, then closer. 

Michael huffed, wiping the tears from his cheeks. He'd only just started crying, but he knew if he looked in a mirror, his face would be red and eyes swollen as if it had been days. Maybe it had been. 

"What do you want?" he asked. He'd asked before. It had answered a few times, right? He was pretty sure. It didn't reply this time. He looked over his shoulder. It was only a few feet behind him. 

It could look like him, he knew. Probably near enough that people would think it was him. But Michael knew it did not look like him. 

It smiled a lot and his smile didn't look like that. Sometimes in the halls, he'd smile in the mirrors just to make sure. Michael had the right amount of teeth and his lips ended where they stopped.

And it was a little taller. Michael had always been very tall, so short of getting out a measuring tape, no one would know. And how many people even knew him that met it? He had no idea, but hoped none.

Its hands were sharp, not like glass, but like heartache. From nowhere but all over. 

Its laugh was the worst though. Michael had always hated his own laugh, high and breathy. Growing up, people said it was annoying, girly, unnatural. Michael never smiled that wide and never laughed that much. 

It did laugh like him, the same soft laugh but loud in a way that had nothing to do with volume. A laugh in a silent funeral no matter where it really was.

He stopped walking but didn't turn around. It stopped next to him, giggling a little. He looked at it. 

Distorted was the best word for it. The world's most subtle funhouse mirror. He knew it called itself The Distortion, but how he knew he wasn't sure. It didn't have a name, it used Michael's, but it was a thing and that thing was The Distortion. She had never told him that. Maybe it had. 

It was smiling. 

Its eyes were wrong. Michael's eyes were grey, which he'd always found exceedingly boring. Its eyes were colorless in a different way. It was all the colors, one indistinguishable from another so he couldn't actually have picked one out of the lot.

"How does anyone actually think you're human?" he said under his breath. It didn't reply. 

He wondered what it'd be like to hit it, but his knuckles stung at the thought, so he'd probably tried and failed that before. 

Its hair was wild while Michael almost always kept his tied back. He looked past the thing into a mirror and slowly took his hair down from its eternal tie.

In a way, it was more like him than he was. He hated so many things about it, but its looseness, its lack of shame for just existing was something he admired. He hated that too. 

Michael turned and shoved The Distortion back against the wall. The sound it made was wrong, like it weighed twice as much as it should. 

He shook his hair out, letting the curls bunch up around his face. Why had he even grown it out if he was just going to be embarrassed of it? 

Why did it get to enjoy his body more than he ever had? 

It looked down at him and Michael thought suddenly that this was how everyone in his life had seen him. How he'd done everything in his power to make himself smaller so they could look down on him instead of up. How stupid he must have looked, he realized. A man that size couldn't look small.

He wrapped his fists in its shirt and grit his teeth. It wasn't smiling anymore, but it didn't appear upset. It was curious. 

That was a much more natural expression on his face. How many questions had he asked that went ignored because they thought he was stupid? 

Be quiet, Michael. Just listen, Michael. Don't bother the Archivist, Michael. 

His lips were on its before he actually knew it. He was so angry, but not at it. Not at himself.

It curled its wrong hands in his coat, unzipping it jerkily. He let go of it and yanked his jacket off, throwing it as far as he could away from them. To get rid of that fucking permanent chill. 

He kissed it again, hard. 

He'd dated in life, of course. But there was always doubt. Shame. He felt like he'd never let anyone figure him out because of it. Long term relationships meant communication and talking and family and he couldn't handle it. 

He didn't let himself handle it. 

So the sex was always okay, he couldn't bring himself to ask aloud what he wanted. 

The Distortion didn't need to ask.

It kissed back with the same force, clacking their teeth together and sending vibrations through his body. 

It shoved him, hard, and he hit the other wall, gasping at the impact. It grinned at him and the smile wasn't so offensive now. Just hungry. It pulled its sweater off, something cute and trendy in a color Michael would never have worn. 

It pressed against him, pushing a leg between his own and kissing him again. It moved its lips down to his throat, biting and teasing the flesh between its many teeth. It felt like sandpaper but Michael moaned all the same. He reached for the hem of his own sweater, a tan thing that was the warmest thing he'd owned. 

It grabbed one of his wrists and pressed it hard against the wall, doing the same to his throat. He couldn't breathe and its hands made his bones ache more than his skin.

It wrenched his head to the side and Michael made eye contact with himself in a mirror on the far wall. He watched it look at him, grinning while he gasped. His mouth was open and cheeks pink, hair wild around his face. It squeezed his throat and he whimpered. 

"How does anyone actually think you're human?" it growled, looking over its shoulder to meet his eyes in the mirror. 

It giggled and let his throat go, pulling his sweater off and going straight for his pants when it seemed clear it didn't have the dexterity for his button-down. 

Michael took his own shirt off, nearly ripping it getting it off while The Distortion slipped a hand into the front of his trousers. It was like the most erotic kick in the dick he'd ever had. An ache shot up into his stomach and he slumped against it, groaning loudly. 

It held his weight, stroking his cock while still giggling. 

After a moment it made Michael laugh too, giggling into the Distortion shoulder. He wrapped his arms around it, looking into the mirror while he cried out from pleasure. 

After a few minutes, he had a hard time telling his own face from The Distortion's. 

He slipped, lost in his own reflection for a moment and when he refocused, tearing his gaze from his own face, it was stepping back. Michael took a breath, bracing himself against the wall, and watched it strip naked. He went to take his boots off and found them already off, trousers already around his thighs. He kicked them the rest of the way and giggled, somehow amused by the fact that this creature wearing his face was identical naked too. For some reason, he'd expected it to be doll-like. 

It picked him up, a task which actually should not be easy for it. Michael knew he was thin, but still, over two hundred pounds and he definitely couldn't pick up two hundred pounds. 

It was just as slender but much more solid. He wrapped his legs around its waist and it slammed his back against the wall. It had no resistance fucking into him. The halls weren't a real place, so at least that was a convenience of not having a real body. It still hurt, an ache he'd always loved. Michael threw his head back, going dizzy with the force of it. 

The pain gave way, but The Distortion certainly hadn't waited for that to be the case. By the time he wasn't cross-eyed with pain, it had been fucking him for a good minute. The ache didn't go away though, every thrust pushing phantom pain from his ass up his spine. 

He got lost in the feeling, the first feeling besides sadness and anger in what was either days or centuries. He curled his hands in the hair at the nape of its neck and threw his own head back. 

He felt like crying it felt so good, to actually be held and even used for the first time in so long. It gripped his thigh and waist with awful, impossible fingers. 

It hurt like he was already sore all over. Michael couldn't help from crying out with every thrust, squeezing his eyes shut. He tipped his head forward and felt lips crash into his own, kissing him deeply. 

He opened his eyes in surprise, but relaxed back into it, biting the Distortion's Iip hard. It moaned into his mouth. The reverberation of the noise made his bones feel like a wind chime. 

It pulled back when he shuddered, kissing down his long neck and shoulder. It giggled into his throat, slapping his ass with too long fingers and giggling again when he yelped. 

Michael arched his back against the wall when it buried its cock deep, digging his nails into its shoulders. 

It was almost impossible to focus on one feeling, one part of his body. It was overwhelming and suffocating, being aware the Distortion was inside him, was him, and was all around him. His nose felt oddly wet and his headache only got worse, so he let go. For the first time in his life or death, he just gave in. 

Michael came back to his body through the sheer force of his orgasm. Or The Distortions, he actually couldn't tell the difference at this point. He looked in the mirror once his vision cleared, static chasing itself to the sides of his vision. 

His face and chest were covered in blood, from his nose it seemed like. His cheeks and shoulders had bloody lip marks and his mouth tasted of iron. The Distortion's back was scratched and torn from his nails. It was still holding him up. 

He looked at it, finally. It looked even more wrong than before, Michael's blood all over its mouth. It was smiling, so many teeth showing he was convinced the sides of its mouth ended at its ears. Its eyes, an unclear amount, maybe six? Were all trained on Michael, half-lidded and sated. 

He smiled back, slowly. In the mirror, his teeth were red. 

He was quite sure this was the first time he'd ever felt truly relaxed in his life, in the arms of a creature of madness. He supposed it made sense, after all, the only real comfort he'd ever felt had been in his own arms. 

"Thank… you," it said after a long moment. There was no gratitude in the words and Michael couldn't really gather what it meant by that. He hadn't done it a favor. The closest thing it sounded like was when his mother would make him say grace, showing thanks for the meal to someone who was not listening. 

He nodded all the same. 

It set him down and he scrubbed a hand over his face, slumping down against the wall. When he opened his eyes again, he was dressed again, the blood was gone. Back to the indefinite. The Distortion was dressed too and sat down next to him. 

He rested his head on its shoulder and sighed, pulling his hair back out of the tie. He at least wanted to keep that. 

"How long's it been?" he asked after a moment. "Since I've been here."

"What do you mean?" it asked. Michael rolled his eyes. 

"Time. How many months, years? How much time?" After a moment of silence, Michael huffed. "What year is it?" 

"2015," it said. He closed his eyes, pressing his face into its shoulder like it could bring him any comfort. 

"Six years." It felt like much longer. "I wonder if anyone looked for me." It didn't reply. He sniffed and shook his head a little. 

The last time he spoke to any of his sisters was months before he went to Russia. They probably had no idea he was gone. Unless Ms. Robinson told them he was dead. 

"Is she alive? The Archivist?" The Distortion shook its head. 

"No. Not anymore." Michael couldn't help but smile at that. Maybe it was wrong to be so pleased, but she clearly hadn't cared for his life. 

He closed his eyes and when he opened them, he was walking again. He smiled a little to himself and pulled his hair down. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading my outright refusal to believe Michael Shelley isn't wandering the Distortion for eternity, hope you enjoyed your stay in the halls. It's times like this I really hope Rusty Quill doesn't have a secret ao3 account. Jonny, if you're reading this, I'm not sorry.


End file.
